Warhawks Boys Finish Fifth in Meet at North Butler

The West Fork boys track and field team finished in fifth place out of nine teams in the track meet at North Butler High School on Friday, April 25. Due to the weather throughout the day it was too wet to run field events, so only running events we ran during the meet. The Warhawks finished in the top five in two different team events. The Warhawks finished first in the 4 x 200-meter relay when Blaine Schulz, Brett Behr, Dax Suntken and Zander Hansen finished with a time of 1 minute, 37.82 seconds. Schulz, Behr, Hansen and Rylan Dorenkamp would finish second in the 4 x 100-meter relay for the Warhawks with a time of 46.73 seconds. The Warhawks would finish inside the top six in one other team event, the 4 x 400-meter relay with Caleb Kruger, Levi Tompkins, Caden Stanbrough and Jasper Jones finished with a time of 4 minutes, 6 seconds. 

The Warhawks finished in the top five in four different individual events. Aaron Ihrke finished second in the 3200-meter run with a time of 11 minutes, 16.44 seconds. Rylan Dorenkamp finished third in the 400-meter dash with a time of 56.34 seconds. Dorenkamp would also finish fourth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.05 seconds, and finish fifth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.98 seconds. Warhawks head coach, Caleb Hovenga, discussed Dorenkamp’s strong showing in multiple events on Friday. 

“He came off a pretty good sophomore season as a good relay guy for us,” said Hovenga. “So this was kind of his year to start figuring out some opens and then when one of our top guys went out he kind of got to step into that role and help us be successful.”

Dax Suntken finished fifth in the 200 with a time of 24.07 seconds. The Warhawks finished inside the top eight in two other individual events. Blaine Schulz finished sixth in the 100 with a time of 12 seconds and Jasper Jones finished seventh in the 400 with a time of 57.99 seconds. Coach Hovenga is pleased with his team's performance, especially since they are missing some key runners. 

“We have had a couple of injuries and just a couple of unforeseen things pop up where people aren’t able to compete,” said Hovenga. So we got to dig deep into some of the freshmen and sophomores and see what they are made of, maybe a little earlier than they’re ready for. That has been nice to see this year and every meet so far we have had some pretty solid performances, including on Friday.” 

The Warhawks competed in the GHV Cardinal Relays at Garner-Hayfield-Ventura on Tuesday, April 29 and their next meet is the Jim Basye Coed Relays at Hampton-Dumont-CAL on Friday, May 2.